artificial languages, artificial religions

A post over at Evn's place got commenters thinking about fictional religions. My favourite fictional SF religion is the earth-based one depicted in Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin. My second and third favourites also appear in her books (The Telling and short stories about the people of Ki'o). I also rather like the religion of Minbar in Babylon 5.

And then there was a post over at Bo's place about artificial languages, specifically Brithenig, which reminded me that there is even a Language Construction Kit.

It's probably fun to construct both fictional languages and fictional religions (and there is a similarity between language and religion) because it helps us to think about how they are structured, what makes a good or bad language or religion, and whether other species would have anything that we could recognise as religion, and how they would communicate (maybe using pheromones, like the aliens in Liz Williams' Empire of Bones).

Happy birthday Will

It's St George's Day (and has been since 1222).

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' ~ Henry V, 3:1

Historically St George was a third-century martyr. He acquired his dragon-slaying reputation from the Golden Legend. He has only been England's patron saint since 1415. The original patron saint of England was St Edmund.

St George is also the patron of many other countries and organisations. In other countries, George is associated with greenery, and is sometimes conflated with Khidr.

St George is also associated with the Crusades. Not the ideal association, to my mind, since the Crusades were a disaster for interfaith relations, and a brutal and bloody chapter in the history of warfare (and their reverberations are still being felt today).

It is also Shakespeare's birthday today - and personally I find Shakespeare more inspiring, as the creator of great literature. Happy birthday Will.

Shakespeare's plays (and those of his contemporaries) defied the unities of time, place and action, and illustrated a vast panoply of human life. Many of his words and expressions have passed into the English language; he has more quotations in the dictionary of quotations than any other writer, and his characters are a byword for the great tragic and comic experiences of life, love and death. He also wrote a lot of poetry and plays that inspire Pagans and have inspired other fantastical literature. Think of the Three Witches in Macbeth, based on the Three Norns of Norse mythology; Mercutio's speech in Romeo and Juliet; Herne the Hunter in The Merry Wives of Windsor; the whole of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and much more.

What about a patron deity of England? I would suggest Herne the Hunter (often conflated with Cernunnos), Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow, or perhaps Brigantia, goddess of sovereignty, or Britannia, a personification of Britain.

signs and pawtents

Teh Ceilin Cat make Her appearunz in teh sky...



And here is Her pawprint...



U not knoe wot is a Lolcat?

disestablishment and pluralism

Rethinking religion in an open society
Though the role of religion in society has come back onto the agenda with a vengeance in recent years, the political, spiritual and intellectual resources at our disposal for handling the issues involved seem perilously thin on all sides in public life. This paper aims to reconstruct some key terms in the debate and to offer a positive case for a 'disestablished' form for religion within a plural social and political order. In particular it suggests that the alternative to hegemonic religion or attempts to exclude religion from public life lies in the rediscovery of an alternative form of politics rooted in practical 'goods' and 'virtues' derived from different communities and traditions, accompanied by the development of a 'civil state' framework.

I would recommend reading this, regardless of whether you are an atheist or a person with a religion or a spiritual path.

In this article, Simon Barrow takes a long hard look at the current debate on who gets to keep control over public life, and tries to move beyond the over-simplified "atheists versus religionists" picture peddled by the media.

I think he is right that we are now in 'post-Christendom' and I think this is a good thing. I think Christianity lost its claim to credibility when it got into bed with the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, and ceased to be a radical critique of the status quo at that point.

Likewise, ancient paganism lost its credibility (in modern eyes, anyway) when it became a state religion where you had to sacrifice to the numen of the Emperor. All the excitement was located in the mystery religions.

Theocracy is a bad idea anywhere - established religion is always a conservative force, because it is run by the rich and powerful, who have a vested interest in preserving the status quo. It's the small radical groups like Quakers, Unitarians, the Metropolitan Community Church, Soulforce, Wiccans, eco-Pagans, Sufis, Hasidim that challenge inequality and promote justice (for LGBT people, peace, the environment, etc.)

Recently some Pagans have started to liaise with the government over various issues, which is great, but the problem is that the government wants Pagans to "speak with one voice" and I don't see how we can do this, when there are many different Pagans with many different agendas and ideas. I guess we can try to reach a consensus among ourselves and then relay that to the government, but owing to the distributed nature of Pagan networks and communities, it is difficult to canvass everyone's opinion.

What Simon Barrow suggests instead of the established church is a polity based on values and virtues instead of beliefs - an eminently sensible idea, and something that is compatible with many religions, including Paganism, Unitarianism, and Buddhism, to name a few - all of which are based on values and not on beliefs. There is disagreement about beliefs both within and between traditions, but most people can agree on a set of values and civic virtues - inclusivity, tolerance, social welfare, justice, equity, charity (all good Heathen and Roman virtues), and so on.

He does not mention Paganism (though he does mention small new religions and non-aligned spirituality), and so I wonder what his proposed model might be like for Pagans - I think it would be a good thing, because it would be based on values which we can all subscribe to, and there might be less of the governmental mindset that insists on consulting one specific religious organisation and assuming that it represents the views of everyone in that group. It could also mean that Christianity might no longer be seen as a model that other religions must be like, or conform to, in order to be regarded as religions.

save the "witch children"

Children who are accused of witchcraft in Africa have been beaten, abused, abandoned and even killed. This scandalous state of affairs is exacerbated by the arrival of evangelical Christianity in Africa.

Now there is a charity which helps children accused of witchcraft, and gives them a new start in life. It's called Stepping Stones Nigeria, and you can donate via PayPal.

If you're having any sort of social event, please consider using it as a fundraiser for these kids.

• Stepping Stones Nigeria's Winter Newsletter 07/08
• Observer Article: "Child Witches in Niger Delta"
• Observer Film of the children Stepping Stones works with
• Photos of children at CRARN shelter by Robin Hammond
• The Tide News, Nigeria - NGO Says Child Abandonment Promotes Trafficking
• The Sun News, Nigeria - Fear of Witches: Akwa Ibom State Traditional Rulers ask Governor to Tackle Witchcraft
  
• AFRUCA Conference Calls for Urgent Action to Address the Link Between Witchcraft and Trafficking
• Supporting Victims of Witchcraft Abuse and Street Children in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria - Speech by Stepping Stones Nigeria at AFRUCA Conference

I have created a facebook group to promote awareness of this issue.

prison for religious bigots

A pair of religious bigots who posted entirely false and unsubstantiated allegations of "satanic" child abuse on their web site have been given a nine month prison sentence in Australia.

Such allegations could have extremely serious consequences for the victims (and have had such consequences in the past), so it is only right and proper that the people making untrue allegations like this should be jailed. This case should also establish a precedent for clearing other bigoted and libellous nonsense off the internet, such as this list of supposedly dodgy organisations (some of which are not dodgy), which should be replaced with this list of how to spot the warning signs of a dodgy group (see the section 'Some danger signals to watch for').

Read the Australian OTO press release for more details. Also see the Wild Hunt for more background information.

Persecution of witches

I have just read and signed the petition: "Stop the Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill 2007"

The above 2007 Bill and 1957 Act undermines, denies and violates S.A. Constitutional Rights to religious freedom, expression, equality, liberty, dignity and security of a religious minority in South Africa.

Please take a moment to read about this important issue, and join me in signing the petition. It takes just 30 seconds, but can truly make a difference. They are trying to reach 6,000 signatures.

Why is this important? Because people have been murdered and maimed on suspicion of being witches, and giving a legal basis to the persecution of witches will make the problem of attacks on innocent people even worse. And it will also adversely affect Wiccans and Pagans in South Africa.

religions as software

Christianity is like Microsoft:

• It's a large corporate venture, bent on world domination
• Once you've installed it on your hard drive, it's really difficult to get rid of it
• Nearly everyone's got it (and they use it in schools), so it has become the default option
  
• It is incompatible with other software
• It takes up a lot of space on your hard drive
  
• It fails to conform to international standards
• But the user interface is attractive and the support is 24/7

Paganism is like Linux:

• It's dead set against Microsoft
• It's small and developed by a dedicated community of geeks
• It comes from Northern Europe
• The support arrangements are a bit patchy
• It's eclectic and has lots of shareware

Reconstructionism is like programming via the command line:

• It's bloody hard work and you can only do one thing at a time
  
• Heathenry - "the religion with homework" - 'nuff said.
  

Satanism is like a computer virus:

• It's parasitic upon Microsoft and exploits its vulnerabilities
• People blame it on the Linux geeks but it's actually done by spotty teenagers with no social life
• Naive Microsoft users are always claiming there's more of it about than there actually is (there are only about 100 actual Satanists in the UK)

Google is like an insidious cult:

• It appeared from nowhere and everyone thought it was peace-loving and non-corporate and cool
  
• Now it is trying to take over the world by stealth
• It started with the motto "Don't be evil" but then got into bed with a totalitarian regime
  

The New Age is like Facebook:

• Light, bright and has lots of shiny gizmos
• Uses social networking to connect people

Quakers (Friends) and Unitarians are like Apple Mac:

• Generally owned by intellectuals and arty types; not corporate
• Adheres to international standards
  
• Great user interface; universally agreed to be cool
  
• But hardly anyone actually owns one

Wicca is like Firefox:

• Wicca discovered the Divine Feminine way before Christianity, and now they're stealing our clothes (so everyone will think they discovered Her) - Firefox invented tabbed browsing way before Microsoft, and now Microsoft have finally adopted it, and everyone will think they invented it
• Both Wicca and Firefox have a great logo
• Both adopted by a small community of dedicated users

By Yvonne Aburrow (if you pass this on to anyone else, please link back here).

See also: Religions as ex-girlfriends by Al Billings

Occam's Razor

A commenter on the facebook version of the "label, schmabel" post pointed out that the list seemed a bit complex, and said that for her the bottom line was whether the belief system was oppressive or empowering for women and lesbians.

That is part of the bottom line, for me. For instance, I don't see how women can be empowered without liberating men from the oppressive structures of patriarchy too. Another friend lives by Socrates' question, "How shall we live a good life?" which also seems like a good test. The spiritual is political, as many people have pointed out.

I guess my "bottom line" or Occam's Razor would be "Does it contribute to the well-being of all beings?" (including women, men, LGBT, queer, animal, tree, discarnate entity, Gaia, etc.) But one still needs to unpack exactly what that means and how it works out in practice, hence my previous complex list. But I can see how the list would seem weird if you didn't know what my bottom line was.

what religion am I?

According to the Belief-O-Matic:

1.	Neo-Pagan (100%)
2.	Liberal Quakers (91%)
3.	New Age (91%)
4.	Mahayana Buddhism (90%)
5.	Unitarian Universalism (86%)
6.	Reform Judaism (75%)
7.	Sikhism (73%)
8.	Jainism (72%)
9.	Theravada Buddhism (71%)
10.	Baha'i Faith (70%)
11.	Taoism (67%)
12.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (66%)
13.	Hinduism (63%)
14.	Orthodox Quaker (61%)
15.	Secular Humanism (59%)
16.	New Thought (58%)
17.	Scientology (58%)
18.	Orthodox Judaism (51%)
19.	Islam (44%)
20.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (40%)
21.	Nontheist (32%)
22.	Seventh Day Adventist (30%)
23.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (30%)
24.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (29%)
25.	Eastern Orthodox (19%)
26.	Roman Catholic (19%)
27.	Jehovah's Witness (17%)

There you go, I am 100% NeoPagan, 91% Liberal Quaker, 90% Mahayana Buddhist, and 86% UU. Maybe I am a Quaking Penguin, er sorry, Quaker Pagan. I resent being 91% New Age, though. And I'm only 67% Taoist, that's strange. I find it significant that my top 11 religions all acknowledge the validity of other religions as paths to the Divine (that's a big issue for me).

disgusting

I am disgusted by the attack on the Bath Mosque (and by all crime, whatever its motives). The point about why this has caused outrage is not because the victims were practitioners of religion, but because when you are in a church or a mosque, the doors are left open for people to come in, so they are peculiarly vulnerable to attack. It's a violation of trust.

Also, I don't like the idea of something that is sacred to someone else being desecrated (whether or not I find it to be sacred). Add to that the fact that moderate Muslims are under attack from both the general public, who tar all Muslims with the brush of extremism, AND from the extremists for being too moderate, and you can imagine how isolated and vulnerable this sort of thing would make them feel.

Also I am saddened that this sort of incident undermines the efforts made by people of all faiths and none to live peaceably together in mutual respect and understanding. If someone came into my house and urinated in my sacred space, I'd feel very vulnerable and frightened.

the journey

A humorous look at the snakes and ladders board of life...

Phase 1. There you are, trucking along, minding your own business, when wham! something happens to jolt you out of your complacency - maybe a contact with the numinous, or something that upsets or expands your current paradigm.

Phase 2. You try to ignore it, but it just comes back, louder and more insistent.

Phase 3. You give in to it and get involved. Suddenly all your prayers are answered (evangelical types), all your spells work (occult types)! "Woo-hoo", you think to yourself, "I've found the truth". "I must spread the word" (evangelical types); act all superior because "I know everything" (occult types); become a hermit (mystical types); or go on a pray-a-thon (CU types).

Phase 4. Your prayers (or your magic) stop working. Setback! "The God/Goddess doesn't love me any more / I've lost my super occult powers."

Phase 5. The pit of despair. Long dark teatime of the soul. Doubt. Assault by "demons" in the wilderness. Wrestling with angels.

Phase 6. You meet an inner guide, possibly an enlightened one. Possible responses to this:

• Get massively involved in the tradition associated with the guide, assuming it is the Only Truth. As in the game of Snakes and Ladders (originally an Islamic analogy for the spiritual journey) go back to phase one.
• Decide that all your journey prior to this point was worthless because you have now found the Truth, and previously you were deluded by the "powers of darkness". Go back to phase one.
  
• Realise that all the guides that have ever appeared to humanity are messengers from the Divine Source. Proceed to phase seven.
  

Phase 7. Further up and further in. Acknowledge that all religions have the potential to facilitate contact with the Divine. Joyful embrace of the Divine Beloved. Find a tradition that resonates with your new inner reality.

Phase 8. Decide to both serve the world and enjoy its beauty. Share the blessing.

Observant readers may notice the similarity of this with Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey. I have seen facets of this journey in accounts of Christian mystics, the prayer lives of Christian bloggers, the spiritual journeys of Pagans and occultists. With variations, it seems quite widespread - perhaps even universal. Some people get stuck in one of the phases for a long time, in others they may last only a few days. And the journey may be a spiral around the mountain - we may revisit these phases several times in different ways.

"Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be." ~ Alan Watts

Unitarians

I went to the Unitarian church on Sunday and it was so beautiful that it made me cry.

All their hymns were about affirming that the truth can be found in all religions and in films and books and poetry too, and there was a strong sense of the mystical oneness of the Divine. One of their booklets mentions the dictum of The Life of Brian - "you must all think for yourselves". (Which is also the message of Project Ijtihad).

When I came out I was walking on air - it was fantastic!

creationism research

Recent research on creationism in the USA shows that almost half of Americans do not believe in evolution.

It seems, though, that the question was not framed in such a way as to allow for people who
believe that one of the seven "days" of creation was millions of years, and that evolution and the big bang are true, but God, a god, or the gods started the whole process - where do these people fit in the scheme of things?

• 24% of Americans believe that both the theory of evolution and the theory of creationism are probably or definitely true
• 41% believe that creationism is true, and that evolution is false
• 28% believe that evolution is true, but that creationism is false
• 3% either believe that both are false or have no opinion about at least one of the theories

Without further research, it's not possible to determine the exact thinking process of those who agreed that both the theory of evolution and creationism are true. It may be, however, that some respondents were seeking a way to express their views that evolution may have been initiated by or guided by God, and told the interviewer that they agreed with both evolution and creationism in an effort to express this more complex attitude.

Personally I believe in a multiverse in which universes appear and disappear due to the effects of black and white holes (many physicists have adopted this view), and where the processes of evolution, emergence and collapse are the physical correlates of the thought processes of the mind of the Universe.

beastly

I laughed. A lot. Apparently George W Bush is the AntiChrist, and his grandpa was the Great Beast. (How come poor old Crowley gets the blame for everything?)

And here, you thought the AntiChrist would be brighter. (Joseph Cannon)

Maybe the Antichrist is in fact a whole dynasty....

Eek, I just skim-read the website where these calculations came from. It really is a dynasty! According to this website, Bush is related to the Emperor Nero, Herod the Great, and other nasties. That explains why he's so dumb, then - it's all the inbreeding of his ancestors.

Seriously though, I don't think you need spurious genealogy or the apocalyptic and hallucinogen-inspired ramblings of St John to explain the current state of affairs in the USA. It's just the usual imperialist and capitalist agenda; not hard to explain. But this sort of thing certainly makes for entertaining reading.

outrageous

I've just been alerted to this nonsense by Synesis: new legislation is supposed to extend gay rights to not being discriminated against in the areas of hospitality, healthcare and adoption, among other things. However, the Cabinet is now split over what to do about homophobic religious organisations who do not want to offer their services to gay and lesbian people.

There is no excuse for homophobia in any context - if you take the fact that being gay is completely natural and the fact that according to monotheist theology, their god created everything including gays, then clearly he must have made them gay, so it's completely illogical (not to mention immoral) to say that gayness is wrong.

And people wonder why I say that Christianity is dangerous. Not necessarily Christians - some of them have transcended this nonsense and embraced an inclusive ethic - but Christianity as it is taught in the Bible.

You can't enact a piece of legislation and then allow a huge swathe of the population to ignore it. Although, as Synesis points out, gay people probably wouldn't want to spend their money with homophobic organisations anyway. But, as happened to a gay couple last year who booked a room in a guesthouse and then when they turned up, the owner turned them away, you might not know it was homophobic till you got there. And then you'd be left standing in the rain with nowhere to go.

If, after reading this, you still don't understand why I think Christianity is dangerous, read this as well.

jihad in space

My MA tutor sent me an interesting article on Beliefnet about Battlestar Galactica and religion. I haven't been watching the new series, but it sounds as if it could be interesting, as I love SF and am fascinated by religion. I might have to wait till it comes out on DVD now, though, as I'd never catch up with the plot if I started watching it now.

Interesting that the author of the original show was a Mormon, and drew heavily on his beliefs for the storylines. What is it with SF and religion? The current writer/director is not a Mormon, but religion is still a prominent theme on the show, and humans are polytheists (hurrah!) One of the benefits of examining religious conflict in the context of SF is that you can give your fictional religions different names from religions that exist now, which reduces the likelihood of offending people - although quite a few people have identified the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica with both fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Christians. To which I have to say, if you're ugly, don't look in the mirror.